#todayspoem
from How to Write by Anne Waldman:
Once, on the Sixth Avenue bus
I got a sudden sensation
I had been alive before
That I was a man at some other time
Traveling
You would think this strange if you were a woman
If I were a man right now I’d be getting out of the draft
but I think I’d want to be a poet too
Which simply means alive, awake and digging everything
Even that which makes me sick and want to die
I don’t really, you know
I just don’t want to be conscious sometimes
because when you’re conscious in the ordinary way
you have to think about yourself a lot
Dull thoughts like what am I doing?
…
A lot of drugs can change you if you want
because you too are made of what drugs are made of
In fact you are just a bundle of drugs
when you come right down to it
I don’t want to go into it
but you’ll see what I mean when you catch on